In “The Big Picture(s),” I noted that the number of embedded reporters plunged from somewhere between 570 and 750 when the invasion of Iraq began in March 2003 to roughly 100 by late fall of that year (it would later drop to as few as nine). The piece looked at some of the results of the rise of what journalists themselves call “hotel journalism†and “journalism by remote control.â€Â
Today, United Press International points to how “hotel journalism” affected one of the mission’s significant battles:
A secret intelligence assessment of the first battle of Fallujah shows that the U.S. military thinks that it lost control over information about what was happening in the town, leading to “political pressure” that ended its April 2004 offensive with control being handed to Sunni insurgents.
“The outcome of a purely military contest in Fallujah was always a foregone conclusion  coalition victory,” read the assessment, prepared by analysts at the U.S. Army’s National Ground Intelligence Center, or NGIC.
“But Fallujah was not simply a military action, it was a political and informational battle. … The effects of media coverage, enemy information operations and the fragility of the political environment conspired to force a halt to U.S. military operations,” concluded the assessment.
A copy of this report, “Complex Environments: Battle of Fallujah I, April 2004,” was posted on the Web last week by the organization Wikileaks; UPI independently confirmed its veracity.
Some highlights of the report’s analysis and conclusions regarding Information Operations:
Insurgents demonstrated a keen understanding of the value of information operations. IO was one of the insurgents’ most effective levers to raise political pressure for a cease-fire. They fed disinformation to television networks, posted propaganda on the Internet to recruit volunteers and solicit financial donations, and spread rumors through the street…
***
Arab satellite news channels were crucial to building political pressure to halt military operations. For example, CPA documented 34 stories on Al Jazeera that misreported or distorted battlefield events between 6 and 13 April. Between 14 and 20 April, Al Jazeera used the “excessive force” theme 11 times and allowed various anti-Coalition factions to claim that U.S. forces were using cluster bombs against urban areas and kidnapping and torturing Iraqi children. Six negative reports by al-Arabiyah focused almost exclusively on the excessive force theme. Overall, the qualitative content of negative reports increasingly was shrill in tone, and both TV stations appeared willing to take even the most baseless claims as fact.
During the first week of April, insurgents invited a reporter from Al Jazeera, Ahmed Mansour, and his film crew into Fallujah where they filmed scenes of dead babies from the hospital, presumably killed by Coalition air strikes. Comparisons were made to the Palestinian Intifada. Children were shown bespattered with blood; mothers were shown screaming and mourning day after day. Follow this link to see an example of the emotional images highlighted by Al Jazeera.
The absence of Western media in Fallujah allowed the insurgents greater control of information coming out of Fallujah. Because Western reporters were at risk of capture and beheading, they stayed out and were forced to pool video shot by Arab cameramen and played on Al Jazeera. This led to further reinforcement of anti-Coalition propaganda. For example, false allegations of up to 600 dead and 1000 wounded civilians could not be countered by Western reporters because they did not have access to the battlefield.
Western reporters were also not embedded in Marine units fighting in Fallujah. In the absence of countervailing visual evidence presented by military authorities, Al Jazeera shaped the world’s understanding of Fallujah…
***
Information operations are increasingly important in a 21st Century world where cable television runs 24 hours a day and the Internet offers propaganda opportunities for insurgent and terrorist groups.
The media presence on the battlefield was controlled by the enemy; consequently, they shaped much of the information the world viewed during the fight. In VIGILANT RESOLVE there were few reporters embedded in Marine infantry units; in Operation AL FAJR there were 91 embeds representing 60 media outlets. False allegations of noncombatant casualties were made by Arab media in both campaigns, but in the second case embedded Western reporters offered a rebuttal.
***
Insurgents sometimes get lucky. The Abu Ghurayb scandal and the Shia uprising further enflamed a politically precarious situation and could not have happened at a worse time for Coalition forces.
The report makes clear that Information Operations were not the only factor in the outcome of the first Battle of Fallujah, but they were a factor. “Hotel Journalism” ceded the battlefield to “journalists” picked by the enemy, to the detriment of the US mission and, ultimately the Iraqi people.
(h/t Memeorandum.)
Update: More analysis at the Belmont Club.
Did they really cede the battlefield to the journalists handpicked by the other side? Is it really possible to differentiate between them any longer?
Fred is the only candidate that has evinced any understanding of the extent to which media bias, distortion and lies have to be addressed directly and described accurately. McCain plays their game, Huckabee basks in their phony benevolence like a bloated toad – the rest are afraid to pick a fight. What this analysis shows is that the consequence of that cowardice really does kind of matter.
So they are calling Al Jazeera propaganda? They should read the NYTimes more it is the same crap.
Fredrick von Fred is an absolute pleasure to watch in an interview. Fox News asked if he was hurt by starting his campaign late – “I was right on time, the rest of these clowns were early, moron.” Love it. “I don’t do hand shows.” Gold.
Just look at the way the media fawns all over not-Fred. That has to mean something.
The Western press has its biases. But to be scrupulously fair, the report notes that in the second Battle of Fallujah, embeds were able to rebut false allegations of noncombatant casualties.
They weren’t able to rebut, they were forced to. It’s like how no matter how good your cheat notes are if the teacher is standing behind you you’re screwed.
Karl,
I remember when the military was looking to get some positive info about our troops out in Iraq and some media folks claimed PSYOPS!!! like it was a war crime.
……because, you know, I have a great memory.
Embeds fell to as low as nine for a reason.
https://proteinwisdom.com/?p=5633
But not that great.
happyfeet,
Be careful. I’m sure the Left also would like to claim that the embeds were forced to report as they did. ;-)
alpucchino,
My original draft for “The Big Picture(s)” actually had some stuff on the Lincoln Group kerfuffle, but I cut some things just because I figured it was getting just too frickin’ long for a single piece.
What a lovely metaphor. Thank you. Now back to work!
Karl,
All your stuff is TIGHT! I linked back to that post because it really struck me odd as to how “U.S. Soldiers Handing Out Fresh Water in Fallujah” is propaganda, and “3000 Babies Dead in U.S. Air Raid on School Bus” is reporting.
alpuccino and Karl – Don’t forget that we are beheading babies, especially female minority babies, which we target.
oh, good times. I don’t hear people talking about “leveling Fallujah” much anymore.
12> Hey, Karl, does close count? I really didn’t want to go too far into the dark side to find something…
The media, excuse me, Western Media believe in the concept of reporters without borders. The West assumes their colleagues at Al-Jazera and Al-Arabihya are just as concerned about reporting the facts as they are. They play by the same narrative of “excessive force” when describing coalition activity. The damning evidence against the media is the lack of stories concerning the torture and murder facilities dismantled after Fallujah was liberated.
Hey look! This is me taking Dick Morris seriously. Ok done.
No, mac. The damning evidence against the media is the way the Abu Ghraib story played out.
When Coalition forces took over that prison, it was standing room only. It had been used by Saddam’s government as a center for detention, torture — as in “cutting off extremities” — and murder of any dissidents. One of the really cute features was that several people had been killed and buried in the exercise yard, thus forcing their fellows to walk on them… in a culture where simply showing the soles of one’s shoes is a deadly insult. That report used to exist on the Web, but I lost the URL and have been unable to find it again, because Google has been swamped by Teh Narrative.
American soldiers misbehaved criminally while administering the Abu Ghraib prison. There are people in Sulzberger’s office and wandering through the editorial facilities of CNN who still wonder why it is that the “Arab Street” did not rise up in righteous indignation worldwide and smite the oppressors. In truth, there is no mystery. Given the population of the prison when taken over, and the records of the number of people cycled through the place, it is statistically unlikely that there is a Shi’ia in Baghdad who has not had at minimum a close relative with experience of the place. It would be hard for them to get really excited about panties on somebody’s head on TV when Uncle Abdullah, in the next chair, is missing his right hand and burn-scarred over 60% of his body from the treatment he received in the same place.
The misbehavior was reported promptly, and the chain of command followed up promptly; the incident was investigated and confirmed, and the perpetrators were identified, charged, tried, convicted, and punished; and the process took perhaps a tenth the time that the equivalent civilian procedure would have required. Presented that way, the story notes that Americans are neither better nor worse in any existential sense than anybody else, and have among their number the same proportion of evildoers found in any random population — the difference being that, with us, evildoers are hunted down and disposed of, instead of being granted Civil Service jobs with regular paychecks, opportunities for promotion, and bonuses for destructive activity. We aren’t better than anybody else. We just have better procedures in place, and are willing to teach them to anyone who is prepared to adopt them. This is a net positive in terms of what we wish to accomplish.
The media and the world Left (redundancy alert!) destroyed all that with hypocritical shrieks of outrage based largely on elitist self-promotion. According to them, Americans must of necessity be pure as the driven snow in all aspects of life — which is, of course, how they see themselves — and any deviation from that ideal is grounds for protest based on insult.
Note, too, two never-discussed negative aspects of the case:
First, the people tortured by Americans at Abu Ghraib were almost universally al Qaeda operatives or their Sunni enablers. The message sent to Shi’ia was that the torture they were subjected to was simply a cost of operations for the “Iraqi Minutemen”, not to be noted in any way — but torture applied to their oppressors was ground for worldwide outrage. This is an important factor in the rise to power of Mouqtada al-Sadr, who was the only public figure willing to protest on their behalf.
Second, every one of the American torturers at Abu Ghraib was a Reservist, and a trained and fully-credentialed prison guard drawn from the U.S. population. What does that tell you about conditions in American prisons, at least in potentia? The media never, so far as I can see, followed up on that in any way. You might look up what State they’re from, and who their Senator is, in order to gain a clue as to why not.
Regards,
Ric
My question about Abu Ghraib is why all the shrieking and wailing and gnashing of teeth over something some of the same reporters doing said shrieking, et al, are willing to pay $250 an hour to have done to them.
jdm:
And yet not a word from the lovely Christine as to CNN’s admitted censoring of it’s own news operations in Iraq under Saddam.
Pot, meet kettle.
Geez, BJT, that again? Can’t we just MoveOn?
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